FROM TEOSINTE TO TOMORROW
2019
Raleigh, NC

In collaboration w/ William Dodge + Molly Renda + NC Museum of Art

Recognitions:
2019-2020 Shaping our Genetic Future @ Gregg Museum + NCMA
Featured on ABC 11 News

Exhibited at the Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) July - November 2019 in conjunction with NC State’s multi-site museum exhibit ‘Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures’

The maze ‘From Teosinte to Tomorrow’ was a 10,000sf geometrically designed stand of tropical field corn cut into a maze at the North Carolina Museum of Art. At the heart of the quarter-acre maze, there was an interior room with a bed of teosinte (Zea mays parviglumis), the wild grass thought to be the ancestor of modern corn.

The maze forms the symbolic entrance to NC State’s multi-site museum exhibit Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping Our Genetic Futures. Rooted in the earliest form of biotechnology, selective breeding, it offers multiple pathways to solve a puzzle. And the short ground covered to the teosinte plants represent thousands of years of agricultural history.

As humanity struggles with challenges like population growth and climate change, there is a growing disconnect between first-world populations, the sources of our food, and the people who labor to grow it and deliver it. As one of the earliest cultivated grains in the western hemisphere, the cultural significance of maize (Zea mays) invited conversations about these issues as well as issues of class, identity, community, and genetics in society. Exploring the maze was an experiential way for a broad audience to engage with art in nature, consider the issues surrounding the exhibit and to situate themselves in a timeline measured in millennia.

Aerial photographs provided by the North Carolina Museum of Art

Video by Lincoln Hancock